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Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance of newbies

The current HIB has SupCom:Forged Alliance as one of the base games. Everyone can get it for .1$ or whatever cheap they can afford. Heck, I'm even thinking of buying extra keys and gift them around in some weeks/months if people still want to buy in.

For those of you outside the SupCom gig, there's an entire community dedicated to patch and improve the game, with their own client with support for matchmaking+modmanager+mapmanager. They are called the Forged Alliance Forever. The installation of their client is trivial, and creating a new game is fairly easy.

I was wondering if we could form a group/league of newbies trying to learn the game and climb the skill ladder. There's plenty of tutorials and guess someone here would be willing to help us understand basic concepts.

I got my key plugged into Steam, installed FA, setup FAF, added the GAZ UI mod, and then couldn't figure out why FAF wouldn't launch its replays. When I went to host a custom FAF match to see if it would run at all, it then downloaded the exe and mod content, so I had unknowingly skipped that essential step.

I also tried this Advanced Strategic Icons mod, to get bigger main map icons, but it seems to conflict with GAZ and looks rather strange to me. There's another set that's supposed to double the size of the regular icons, but it isn't compatible with FAF. I used to play at a lower resolution as a workaround, and I still use a CRT, so perhaps I'll do that.

Heck, I'm even thinking of buying extra keys and gift them around in some weeks/months if people still want to buy in.

I believe Humble is currently imposing a maximum limit on the number of copies of the same bundle you can buy, 3/24h should be it. I don't have first hand experience though, as I never bought more than 3, and never at the same time.

Since Forged Alliance is the only SupCom I happen to own, I'll try to take a look - although odds are against it, as I suck at strategy and generally avoid MP. But, who knows...

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."

This, but mainly I mean the push and pull nature of it. The way you suffer set backs and parry them or the way you can recover with backup plans, whereas in supcom 1, a lost battle can result in a cascade of defeat that consumes everything.

This, but mainly I mean the push and pull nature of it. The way you suffer set backs and parry them or the way you can recover with backup plans, whereas in supcom 1, a lost battle can result in a cascade of defeat that consumes everything.

well Ive been skirmishing against the (probably crap) AI last night, and lost 2 and a half hours. yay!

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."

What I loved about FA, that SC 1&2 didn't get quite right, is the balance of expansion and escalation. FA's economy requires you to expand and contest the map, and then if the fight is close or it stalemates, you tech more or go for an assassination or late game strategy. SC2 is more polished in many ways, but FA is the bigger & better core game.

Supcom is a fantastic game; one of those games I've kept coming back to year after year, even if I'm not that great. I'll happily play with / spec anyone looking to learn :) (I'm on Steam and FAF under this name, but need prompting to open FAF).

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."

I get the feeling the AI: Balanced AIs cheat. But it doesnt say so in the description, in fact it says only the AIx cheat. any truth in these things?

I'm pretty sure that they shouldn't; if you're playing with AIx there's a lobby option to modify their build speed/resource collection multipliers.

AI usually plays with lots of T1 land and air, and loves T1 air transport drops to every corner of the map for at least the first fifteen minutes. It's incredibly annoying, but once you're through an initial barrage they haven't usually teched up so well.

Also, Im crap. I wish you could set engineers to automatically capture or build metal collectors, instead of having to queue up orders every time you lose one, which is all the time.

What sort of maps are you playing on?

Also, I tend to go for buildings instead of units. I love building defensive positions with multiple shields. it is fucking awesome. (which is probably the reason Im so shit at taking territory)

Pretty much ^.^ sometimes it's a bit of a shame how all online play is about expansive territory holding and barely any point defence/shielding. (Shields are usually primarily defending against air attacks or at a forward fire base, PD as a last minute defence. Building t1 tanks is more mass:dps effective than building point defence).

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."

Forged Alliance is the greatest multiplayer RTS of all time. It doesn't require micro skills, the number of possible strategies is virtually endless. It is in short, utterly fantastic. I have played about 50 games and absolutely plan to play many more! :)

The AI does kind of suck. Playing 1v1s with someone who knows the game is INCREDIBLY helpful. Just talking to people who know the game is helpful. Also watch felixlighta's videos on youtube. They very informative and excellently put together.